Minneapolis safety commish on ICE surge: "We are the ones who are going to have to deal with the trauma"

What does community safety look like with thousands of federal agents on Minneapolis streets? WCCO sat down with Todd Barnette, the city's community safety commissioner, to hear how Minneapolis is handling the surge of federal agents.

"Residents and visitors are afraid," Barnette said.

He hears from people daily about how Operation Metro Surge has upended their lives.

"You can feel it. You can see it because they are not going to the store, kids are not going to school, people don't want to go to work because they are afraid," Barnette said.

He says a separation ordinance prevents the Minneapolis Police Department from working with federal agents.

"Any employee of the city of Minneapolis, you are not in any way able to participate or support ICE in any way," he said.

Barnette adds nor do they want to work with federal agents that engage in tactics that he says terrorize the average citizen.

"Their presence is creating a danger, and so sometimes for our law enforcement, we got to get them out and that will help calm things down because our approach is de-escalation," he said.

Barnette, like many officials in Minneapolis, want them gone, and are having a hard time understanding their purpose in the city.

"Initially what we heard when they were coming was that they were here to help with the fraud, and I haven't seen that," Barnette said.

What he has seen is Minnesotans showing up.

"They are peacefully observing, they are doing it legally, they are capturing these videos that the rest of the country and the world are seeing," Barnette said.

He believes the peaceful protests will help rid the state of ICE agents and their aggressive tactics, but his big concern is what happens next.

"Eventually when ICE officers leave, we are left with what has occurred. We are the ones who are going to have to deal with the trauma that happened, from kids to family, to the economic businesses and things like that," Barnette said. "I am really concerned about that."

Barnette says ICE agents are eroding the work law enforcement has done since 2020 to provide transparency and regain community trust.

He says the city will need to engage with the community to rebuild that trust.